Mastering Chronic Pain by Dr. Sahar Swidan & Dr. Matthew Bennett

Mastering Chronic Pain
by Dr. Sahar Swidan and
Dr. Matthew Bennett

ISBN-13: 9798999258014
Kindle: 380 pages
Publisher: TranscendMed
Released: September 4, 2025

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Living with chronic pain can feel endless and exhausting, especially when nothing seems to help. Mastering Chronic Pain offers hope and a new path forward. In this clear and compassionate guide, orthopedic spine surgeon Dr. Matthew Bennett, MD and pain specialist Dr. Sahar Swidan, PharmD introduce an approach grounded in neuroscience and functional medicine. Instead of masking pain, they show how to work with your body’s biological systems to promote real healing.

This book isn’t about “toughing it out” or chasing the next pill. It’s about understanding what’s really happening in your body and learning how to support your recovery. Inside, you’ll discover: Why pain can continue long after an injury has healed; How to retrain your brain and reset your nervous system; The hidden role of hormones, inflammation, and immunity; Non-medication tools that actually support long-term healing; and a step-by-step guide to your personalized Resilience Code.


My Review:
Mastering Chronic Pain is nonfiction explaining how chronic pain is different than acute pain, why your body can get stuck in pain mode, and how to retrain your nervous system to reduce pain and support healing. I've done a lot of research on chronic pain and have heard much of the information in this book before, so I believe it's both accurate science and useful advice on a variety of non-drug methods that can help reduce pain. They gave just enough medical detail on chronic pain to claim it's a science-based book but spent most of their time explaining things in common language that anyone can understand. They used stories of people dealing with injuries that turned into chronic pain and how they learned about and applied the information in that chapter.

However, it seemed like everything was repeated at least three times, sometimes as a copy-paste from an earlier section and other times with additional information. The last part of the book went over the information (what's causing pain) and pain-reduction methods (Why does this work? How do you do it?) in a different format, but it was basically what we'd already gotten in the first part.

While some of the methods could be taught in brief, step-by-step, text-based instructions, methods like Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) really needed either a chart showing where to tap or you need to go to the Tapping website to see how it's actually done. The authors' instructions in this book weren't detailed enough to do you much good. While I recommend this book, I'd have felt it had more value if less time was spent repeating things and more had been spent detailing the more complex methods.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.